


Taken by Madness

by Maidenjedi



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 10:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3526676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teena Mulder gets a visit from a not-so-dear old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taken by Madness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2006, posted to Gossamer in 2008, and finally posted, unedited, at Ao3 in 2015.

She stood in wet, muddy grass, letting her feet grow numb from cold. She almost couldn't tell, except for the pins and needles that crept up her legs as a warning.

No one watching her would know why she came. They would assume she was a widow, grieving mother, any number of characters in the usual tragedy. She looked like any of them, in her black coat, with her black umbrella, with her graying hair.

Was she there to mock him, then? To gloat? She was living and breathing and free of Bill, Fox was successful and thriving, the world was still turning. *He* was under the cold mud and she would get to wash it off.

Perhaps there were widows who came to this place and thought these things. She doubted it, but she considered it possible.

Widow. A word that implied "wife."

She was neither.

Her fingers were cold, and she knew if she bent her fingers they might not cooperate. 

He was in the ground. She had that comfort, knowing he would not walk up behind her and whisper about the things they had done. Years ago. Decades ago.

A lifetime ago.

He had an actual widow, somewhere. She wondered what had happened to her. Cassandra. Always a little manic around the edges. Hadn't she finally slipped away, hadn't she been taken by madness?

Perhaps by *the* madness.

But Teena had repressed it all. She repeated it under her breath.

Repressed it all.

It was funny, the way images would come to mind when she said it, the way they would mock her and remind her, darling you'll never forget, it did happen, and Samantha is dead, and it was your fault, and....

I repressed it all.

Teena turned away at last. She had been there long enough, the ghosts were coming out to play.

That smell, for instance. But she was alone.

"I heard your son joined the F.B.I."

Not him. Can't be him. There hadn't been any footsteps, any warning. 

"A bright boy, Fox. I always knew he would do well."

She was imagining the cigarette smoke.

"You didn't think I was really gone, did you?"

No, I thought you were really dead.

"Teena, you should look at me."

She turned around. And there he was, standing in front of the headstone she should have known was fake. Everything in their world had always been fake, or imagined, or a set-up.

"I wasn't there that day, Teena. Like Bill, I was at home." He took a drag and squinted, looking at her like she was something odd and new. "They blew up the building and I'm sure I was a target. But I was at home."

Home? Not the house in Greenwich. Not the one at Martha's Vineyard. She knew.

"No home you've ever seen, of course. Did you think, after all you'd seen, that everything was just as it appeared?"

She had, actually. She wanted to believe.

"You should call your son, Teena. He and his wife are having trouble. He could use a boost from his mother."

That did it.

"Fox can take care of himself."

He lit another cigarette over a quiet chuckle.

"Of course he can."

He walked away then, but Teena didn't see him. She was looking at the ground, her fists clenched in tight, cold balls in her pockets. Even absent, he was an attack on her senses;   
the awful smell burning her throat, his grating voice piercing her very core, the way her traitorous body tingled in spite of all he had done to her family.

He had too much power over her.

That was why she repressed it all. All of it. Every phone call, every whispered conversation, every argument. Every kiss, every loving plea, every tender moment.

Was that Samantha laughing? 

Teena's frozen feet were sticking in the mud and she found she couldn't run. Cursing her age and the winter winds, she made it home and found herself locking doors and   
shutting blinds as though she had been followed. She did call Fox that night, though. Just to see. Just to check.

"Mom, Diana has asked for a divorce."

I've repressed it all.


End file.
